Is this where craft beer is heading?

I'll admit I fall into the category of: if I see a new beer I have to try it.

 

The last time I visited the local beer store (last week) I was overwhelmed by the incredible number of offerings as well as the outrageous styles available i.e. an IPA brewed with fruit loops cereal! Breweries are feeling the heat of competition and are resorting to strange styles and eye-catching labels to hopefully prompt you to buy their product. I certainly can understand the emphasis on labels in a very crowded market, but the increasingly numerous, bizarre styles are troubling.

 

Im the same way,but only half the stores can sell singles

 

When the quality of beer is the same labeling may be the deciding factor. I prefer shitty beers with metal labels because I'm cool like that...

 

Local brewer comments about craft beer tastes changing?...duh. When every micro/craft brewer over the past decade has developed a product line of, for argument sake, 6 beers. Of those six, probably 4 were an IPA---one "classic", one fruit added, one dry hopped, and one experimental one-off hop bomb. Then, if we're lucky (not) they make a half-assed stout and a mass appeal version American Lager. So no surprise if drinkers want something a bit adventurous.

 

Give me a simple classy label and a good beer.

 

I would be picking the most basic one, flash to me is covering up for a sub par product. Not totally true but I look at labels in this way no matter the product.

Enjoy

 

I really dislike it too, and, to be fair, I'm not certain that the gentleman who said it doesn't also dislike it. he was describing a trend - one that he might not (I hope) view favorably.

 

Right, and I love their packaging too, but imagine if everyone did plain white labels with their name and the beer name in a smallish, simple font. How would you ever find anything?

 

Those stand out because they're hard to see. Makes one take a closer look.

 

Other Half brews in Bloomfield in Brooklyn so they can double their numbers of "unique" beers. The issue I see is that putting out another lactose IPA or fruited IPA, or Crunchee that is 90% similar to your other beers doesn't really quality as unique in my mind. 306 different beers maybe but not 306 unique beers. I have drank my share of OH beers and some are hits and some are misses (even between batches of the same beer) but I personally find that Other Half has a fairly predictable taste profile for their IPAs at least